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IT'S NOT DIFFICULT TO SECURE AN OLD COURSE TEE TIME AT ST. ANDREWS . . . HERE'S HOW TO DO IT
| What the Tours Don't Tell You | |||||
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Securing a Tee Time at St. Andrews' Old Course First, the least expensive methods - You will pay only the current fee or green fees (with an Old Course time, St. Andrews requires play on one of their other 18-hole courses. The usual choice is either the New or Jubilee. Costs - 2012 New/Jubilee £70, Castle Course £120, Old Course £150). 1 The best way to get a tee time at St. Andrews is through the advance reservation process. Links Management deals directly with a lead golfer. A tour operator or travel agent cannot do this for you. The advance reservation process opens at St. Andrews on the first Wednesday in September (September 4 in 2012) at 10 a.m. GMT (Greenwhich Mean Time). That's 5 a.m. on the east coast of the USA, 4 a.m. central, 3 a.m. mountain, 2 a.m. Pacific. To reserve a time you must have (a) a lead golfer; (b) preferred dates of play; (c) names of other golfers; (d) handicap indices; (e) club affiliations (where the indices are kept). Instructions and application forms are available at www.standrews.org.uk No, you cannot send your application in before 10 a.m. GMT. Yes, it is a good idea to indicate availability for a range of dates in addition to a preferred date for the Old Course. You will be notified by the end of October regarding your success or failure in the advance reservation process. If you are successful you can get on with booking the rest of your trip. If you are unsuccessful, go to "Plan B." 2 "Plan B" - Reapply for an advance reservation on the first or second Wednesday in January. When advance reservations are not prepaid by a certain date (the end of November), those times are released for a second round of applications. No waitlist is kept. Monitor the St. Andrews website for further instruction as this date approaches. If that doesn't work, go to "Plan C". 3 "Plan C" - Schedule a St. Andrews stay in your itinerary and enter the daily ballot. About fifty percent of all Old Course times are distributed through the daily ballot (now two days prior to date of play). Normally, even in high season, if you give the ballot two or three days to work, it would be highly unusual if you did not get an Old Course time. Based on my years of experience, the success rate is 95% or 9:1 in all months except August. This is the least expensive way to get a tee time because no second course is involved. 4 Check in with the Starter when you are in St. Andrews. Whether in the early morning queue or later in the day, you may be able to play as a "walk-on." Due to weather or for other reasons, St. Andrews often has open slots. Obviously, this will work best for singles or duos. Now for the expensive options . . . Any time secured through a third party (i.e., a tour operator, lodging, or The Old Course Experience - OCE) will be significantly more expensive. 1 During September or October, while waiting for word from St. Andrews, call a tour operator and tell them you want to buy a "trade time" through them. These are distributed by The Old Course Experience with the same requirements and on the same schedule as the Links Management times. Hard to say how much this will cost. The Old Course Experience sells to the operator at a profit. The operator will tack on more margin. If you are successful with both the Links Management and The OCE, you don't have to take the OCE time. You can ask for a trade time any time, but they go fast - not much chance after January. This is the main source of all those "guaranteed tee times" advertised by the tour operators. The times are date-specificthat is, they are "guaranteed," but they are only available to you if you can travel when the seller wants you to travel. 2 Certain hotels, guest houses, and B & Bs are allocated some tee times. You can call around, but as a practical matter, these are virtually all sold on to major tour operators who, in turn, package them up with minimum stays, dinners, and other requirementsall at a premium price, of course. This is the other main source of all those "guaranteed tee times." 3 For those who positively, absolutely must have an Old Course tee time and either can't or won't work through the six methods above, you can buy a time directly from The Old Course Experience. See www.oldcourse-experience.com for more information. This program comes with hotel-specific requirements (all super expensive) and an Old Course tee time that works out, more or less, to about about $1,900. I shall say no moreexcept that P.T. Barnum would have loved the guys who thought up The Old Course Experience.
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